


Souls

by Kayzo



Series: Subvert [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Character Study, Godstiel: Castiel as God, Mental Instability, Season/Series 06
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-09
Updated: 2013-10-30
Packaged: 2017-12-31 00:13:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1025048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kayzo/pseuds/Kayzo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He would say they look like Christmas lights, if he even knew what those were, little balls of light that brought such profound joy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Rush In

The souls start pouring in, filling him up and then _more_. He’s forced to his knees, chocking on them. S-so impossibly full. Maybe Dean was right; maybe this is wrong. There’s so many-- _too_ many. He can’t—there’s so much power—it’s overwhelming, tearing him apart, taking every shred of self he has and drowning it. This is how it will end, he is going to die here under this crushing wave of power, this is it—i-it’s _too much_ —

No.

It’s perfect.

How could he ever be afraid of them? These souls mean him no harm; they only wish to serve, to be of use in God’s plan. They _make_ him so close to God. Righteous intent flows through him like quicksilver. He shall carry out divine justice, unimpeded. Neither Raphael nor anyone else will try to stand against him, will want to hurt him, to see him bleeding and broken.

He is protected. With this power, he can protect all others like him, those with no one to turn to; _he_ can be the one they rely on. God did not answer him. He begged and pleaded for a sign, for recognition, for just a shred of love. But God gave him nothing, turned away from his pleas. Or was he even listening to begin with?

_He_ would not be like that. _He_ would listen to every problem of those who turn to him, all their hurt and pain would become his own and he would _help_ them.

He would be _better_ than God.

Something within him shatters at the thought, and his lips pull upwards.

He is there, with Raphael and Crowley and Bobby and Sam and Dean, Dean, _Dean_. And he is saving them. Saving _everyone_. The sound of a snap is far away, a distant echo. Raphael is gone. The world seems brighter. Raphael had betrayed the new God and he had been punished justly. Crowley will die too, but it is such fun to watch him run scared. The souls in him jeer as those ones murdered by this demon’s hands bare their fangs.

Dean (Dean DeanDean _DeanDeanDean_ ) is talking. He is saying things that makes the souls balk, the souls know what he has been through, they understand his pain just like he shall understand the pain of all those who confide in him. They see how much he has been hurt by this human.

“Family?” the word is bittersweet on his tongue. He would like to roll it around in his mouth, taste the syllables, but the souls urge against it. They are here to protect and help him, and so he gives in to their whispers. The souls know best.

He keeps speaking, words flowing out with an ease that never came to him before, but all of that is secondary as he lets himself focus on the power within. It’s everywhere, tingling the walls of his vessel, sparking and bucking under the restraint of skin and yet a smooth, constant flow that would do nothing to hurt him.

He wants to look at his hands. They do not feel like his hands. They feel like the instruments of justice and righteousness and all that is _good—_

It twinges, the pin-prick of the blade going through his back, right at his very center and for an instant it cuts through the wall of souls and he wants to cry out—or cry—it’s _me_! Me, _Cas_ ,I’m still just Cas!—but then the balm of souls soothes the open wound and he smiles.

It does not matter. He is their God now, they shall love him soon enough. He shall tell them that they must. Dean ( _Dean_ ) always was rather slow.

What Castiel forgets is that Dean has never loved any god but his father, has never had blind faith in _anything_.

Oh well, he still has the souls. _They_ love him.

He’s _so powerful_ , and with their help, he can make the world beautiful the way God intended but failed to do. No one can stop him. The Winchesters are just men. He is _God_.

Then why does he feel so helpless?

He laughs as dry tears stream down his face.


	2. Breath Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Souls know best.

It almost hurts, having so much good in him. He can do _so much_ that it is as if each and every soul is calling out for a different direction to be taken, a different person to be helped and it is overwhelming and he needs to _go_ , go now and let the world know that their new God is benevolent. But he cannot.

Even now, as God, even with this power roaring inside him like a solar flare, he is still tethered to the spot by these humans in a way that should be impossible.

The souls hush him; do not allow his mind to dwell on the _whys_. He can help them. He can forgive their transgressions and take away their pains. He can give them _salvation_ and that makes him _great_ , they say.

Sam, the boy with the demon blood, the one who had looked at him as if he were something great when they had shaken hands so long ago, now looked at him in horror. Something within him twisted and he fights for understanding. He is a kind God. He has forgiven Sam. Even when the blade had dug into Him (torn through flesh and scraped bone, landing in the empty hollow where his grace should have been. Now there were only souls and He struggled to remember a time when that wasn’t so, the souls everywhere within him, but it is hard and he stops), He had already forgiven Sam. Sam had done much folly and He has forgiven him. Sam had looked at Him like He was great. Now He _is_ great, so, so great and Sam will look at Him like that again, He is sure.

His eyes move, stop on the man that is at once so much and so profoundly useless that the souls move in agitation, urging Him on. But even as a God, He cannot escape the gaze of the man that had so confused Him as an angel. But now, now that He can see every atom, every thought, desire, feeling, _everything_ of the man, surely he is no longer a mystery.

He had put him together from nothing. And just as then, when He had lifted this man from the ashes of hell and then saved him from his _own_ hell, his eyes were the same. Those eyes that were so suited to showing love held only defiance and pain.

He did not _cause_ pain! The rage within Him was not entirely His own. He made things _better,_ made people _happy_. How _dare_ he! It was not _He_ that had put that pain there, in those green eyes that He had come to lo—the souls quickly came, distracting, lead him away from his heavenly rage and He wondered distantly, what it was that Dean ( _Dean_ ) saw in His eyes.

_(Dead. They were dead. Brighter than ever before, shiny and shimmering and beautiful, glowing with a light that was not their own, but dead all the same. Like an exploding star, the light is brighter for moments or millennia to the naked eye but there is nothing to it. Whatever planets had been around it were violently destroyed and whatever life it could have had or would have had is gone, gone, gone.)_

His eyes caught on the faint glow on Dean’s shoulder, the sight of the last of His grace and it is as if the sword is going through Him again. The feelings He should not have had as an angel, and certainly not as a God, arise. Now the last of His grace is left on the man who will not bow to his very creator.

That feeling, the one feeling of helplessness that the souls do not share in as they do his anger and hurt, rise swiftly as a high wave meant to drown. They _need_ to bow to Him, show Him their love for He is _God_ and He is _right._ And _why can’t they see that?_

With…with all this power inside Him, all these lights of purpose and divinity they should _see_ it, see how He is right and that they need to love Him for He is _all_. They need to love Him so He can _save_ them.

_Love me, love me, love me, loveme, loveme, lovemelovemelovemelovemelovemeloveme_

The souls shower Him in it, love and affection and attention, more than He has ever had before, but His chest still aches where the vessel’s heart still beats and so the souls smother that too, strangle the organ until no more blood flows through His veins, only the quicksilver of souls.

 _Better? Better?_ They soothe, calming and caressing the tattered remains of what is _Cas_ like a mother bringing their child to their breast, threading their fingers through His hair and telling Him that _everything is all right now._

It still hurts this unending and incomprehensible swirl of desperation and need and loneliness, but He does not think of it and the souls tuck it away in the un-beating heart, protecting Him from the pain.

The souls and He, they are friends, He supposes. They take what He has left to offer. They do not get mad that it is little, that He has already given so, so much that there is very little left. They take and take, but they do not spurn him. They follow His path. They help Him. They trust Him. They _believe_ in Him. They understand that He is _right_. But best of all, they don’t hurt Him. And they don’t send Him away.


End file.
